


twenty one consecutive days

by damnmysterytome



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Neighbors AU, Single Dad!Frank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnmysterytome/pseuds/damnmysterytome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt: "Every time you cook you set off the smoke alarm so you know what I’m just going to teach you how to cook."</p>
            </blockquote>





	twenty one consecutive days

After three weeks in a row that Karen's waking up at 5 AM to the smoke alarm in the apartment next to her, she decides that it's enough and she's standing outside the door in her shorts and half buttoned up flannel, her fist banging on the door.

Moments later, the door is opening and a bellow of smoke smacks Karen in the face and there's a coughing man in front of her.

“What is wrong with you?” Karen shouts as she pushes past the man who'd just opened the door to his apartment and heads straight to the kitchen. Thankfully, the apartments all have the same layout. Karen grabs the frying pan that's sitting on a stove and turns on his water faucet to run the pan under the cold water. She leaves it there to cool down before moving to one of the windows to open them.

“Uh, hello?” Karen whirls around and almost immediately lays into her neighbor. She knows she probably looks like a hot mess, shorts, half buttoned up flannel she's not sure is actually buttoned correctly as she pulled it on to go yell at her neighbor. Her half is half up in a bun that's come undone while she was sleeping, she didn't really have time to take care of it before coming over to scream at someone she's never met. “What is wrong with you? You can't just barge into-”

Karen cuts him off, not caring that the man is twice her size despite being the same height. “Seriously? What's wrong with me? What is wrong with you? Do you know how many days I have woken up to that goddamn smoke alarm? Twenty one. Twenty one consecutive days that I have woken up at 5 AM to that. Now, I don't mind the 5 AM part, it's actually a good time to wake up but if I wake up one more time to that goddamn smoke alarm, I'm going to rip it off the wall and shove it up your-”

“Daddy?” A small voice cuts Karen's ranting off and she turns around to see a small child, probably no older than six in footie pajamas standing in the hallway. She murmurs an 'oh' like it all makes sense and feels her face turn bright red. And she's suddenly thankful she got caught off before she could actually threaten this childs father.

“Go back to bed, Lanie.” He says, moving past Karen to kneel down in front of his daughter. While the man is comforting his child after being woken up to the noise of smoke alarm and the sounds of a strange woman yelling, Karen slips out of the apartment and back into her own. She just hopes that he doesn't realize they're right next to each other.

* * *

Karen shuts her apartment door and lifts the travel coffee mug to her lips and turns to her left to see the man who's face she'd gotten into earlier in the day walking down the hallway towards his apartment. She's already in the hallway and she needs to get to work but she also wants to avoid him – but the hallway he's coming down is the only way out of the hallway.

She took a deep breath and put her head down as she moved to one side of the hallway, hoping she could get by him without him noticing her.

No such luck.

“I almost don't recognize you without you yelling at me.”

Karen lifts her head and turns on her heel, looking at him. With her heels on, she has a few inches on him – but he still has the size on her. “About that... I'm sorry, I didn't -” He waves her off for a moment, one hand going into his pocket.

“I guess I didn't realize it was waking up the neighbors.” He seems embarrassed and Karen takes a deep breath. He just seems to be trying his hardest.

“I'm Karen.” She says, taking to steps towards him so she was standing in front of him. She reaches her hand out to shake his hand.

“Frank.” He says, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake. Karen pulls her hand from his a few seconds later and she clears her throat.

“I used to want to be a chef, so I know some tricks. If you want, I can stop by and show you some stuff. Easy, fool proof, and quick. And then you will never have to hear me screaming at you again.” Karen offers. “If you're around today, that is. Or tomorrow. Or...”

Frank stays silent for a few moments, just staring at her before he nods. At first she thinks he's going to turn her down, so she's surprised when he accepts. “Yeah, sounds good.” Frank says. Karen's only slightly surprised, but she hopes she doesn't show it. She nods and lifts a hand up to her face, pushing her blonde locks from her face.

“I can leave work early-”

“Oh, don't do that for-”

“Don't worry about it, really. I work at the paper, my editor will just think I'm running down a source.”

Frank nods slowly and he glances around the hallway before speaking. “Thank you, ma'am.” He says, his eyes locking with Karen's again.

“So, I'll see you around noon?”

“Yeah, noon.”

* * *

Karen's standing in Frank's kitchen by noon, whisking eggs for an omelet – which turns out to be exactly what Frank's been trying to make for breakfast for a week. How he manages to set off his smoke alarm with that, Karen's got no idea. They're not talking much besides Karen rambling about the different omelets that you can make. Okay – Frank's not taking, but Karen's voice fills the silence as she pours the egg mixture into a pan, the fire on low.

“You said you used to want to be a chef,” Frank says as she's watching the eggs. Her head turns to look at him, eye level with him since she's kicked off her heels. “Why aren't you?”

“It wasn't my dream,” Karen explains. “It was my brothers and... After he... After he died, my parents kind of pushed some of his dreams on me. Like this one. It wasn't until I was graduating high school that I... Left and came to New York, I haven't been home since.”

“Sorry,”

“I can do that flip trick with pancakes, so I guess it was worth it.” There's a hint of a smile on Frank's face as he watches her place the filling they'd created when she first got there. “So, how do you manage to set off the smoke alarm with an omelet? Just curious.”

Frank shrugs and brings a hand up to his neck to scratch at it. “Her Ma used to take care of all this, then uh, we split up and she took off. I don't really have any clue what I'm doing.” Karen looks away from Frank, folding the omelet over slowly. She didn't think much about having kids, but she'd like to think she'd never abandon her kid. She folds the omelet in

“I'm sorry.” Karen says, picking up one of the plates that Frank had pulled out and set on the counter. She picked up the pan again and let the omelet fall onto the plate. Frank opens a drawer with silverware and hands her a fork, taking one in his hand.

She watches him take a bite of omelet until he tells her it's good before she lets out a fake scoff, “Yeah, duh.” There's a grin on her face as she takes her own bite of it, leaning against the counter as they stand in the kitchen eating from different ends of the omelet.

Frank speaks when the omelet is almost gone, their forks repeatedly clashing when they try to cut off parts of it at once (they should have just cut it in half). “So, uh, where were you going to shove my smoke alarm?”

She looks up from the plate and remembers the threat she almost finished this morning before his daughter interrupted them, her face reddening. “Oh, up your ass.”

 


End file.
